take eight minutes and divide

by ninety million lonely miles

The Acts of the Apostles Chapter 15:

Sometimes you read a passage of the Bible, and its concerns are so contemporary they nearly leap off the page! …Today’s Scripture is not one of those passages. Or, so it would seem.

With its concern for something as icky and private as circumcision, today’s passage seems primitive to enlightened modern people like us. Really, though, the subject matter of this passage is just as burning for us now as it was for them then, over two thousand years ago!

Circumcision may not be our particular bugaboo. And I’m not altogether sure it isn’t. Regardless, we have just as many, if not more, causes and concerns we presume the Gospel is contingent upon! And like circumcision, all our Gospel considerations are good and honorable. Which is what makes them so insidious.

…A few months ago, Amanda got me onto the fantastic podcast, Heavyweight. In this program, host Jonathan Goldstein helps people resolve issues from their past. What Jonathan does is, assist people in accessing something from their past that’s interfering with their present. 

For instance, my favorite episode is about a young man named Scott. When Scott was young, he got into drugs and eventually fell into addiction. As a result, he lost his job and had to move back home. 

With no income, he took to swiping things from around his parent’s house to help pay for his addiction. At first, these were small objects. Easy to miss. As he pawned all those off, though, he had to turn to stealing larger, harder to miss items: the family silver or a baseball autographed by one of the Yankees’ world championship teams. 

The scheme went south when Scott turned to blatantly forging his father’s checks. Scott was turned into the police and arrested. At sentencing, the judge said Scott could go to jail or a particularly harsh rehabilitation program. While the program didn’t look all that promising, it was the only lifeline thrown his way. So Scott took it. 

And after two years, Scott emerged sober! He even found a job working at an intake clinic, helping other people suffering from addiction. You couldn’t hope for a happier ending. But for Scott, there was a loose end in his otherwise happy ending. The list his father had given him. 

The first time Scott’s father visited him in prison, he gave Scott a receipt of every item Scott has stolen. The guilt of that transgression tallied against him nagged at Scott. Even after he turned his life around! So one year, Scott set about to retrieve everything he has stolen. And he managed to, too! At Christmas, he presented the collection to his father. Before they had even time to go through every item, though, Scott’s uncle asked about the Luger. 

Of everything Scott has managed to track down, the Luger was the one thing he hadn’t been able to recover. Worst of all, the Luger was the one item at the top of his father’s list—a family heirloom. A prized possession his grandfather had “liberated” during his service in the Second World War. That Luger represented the issue lodged firmly in his past that Scott hoped Jonathan could help him resolve. 

Now, I don’t have time to tell you about all the twists and turns in their scavenger hunt. But let me tell you, it was like looking for a needle in a stack of needles. Incredibly, though, with no small amount of luck and determination, they managed to track down the gun! 

Then, getting the owner to sell the gun was a challenge! Finally, because of gun laws, the purchase was even complicated, too. They persisted, though, and at long last were able to return that Luger back to Scott’s father!

A funny thing happened when he gave the gun to his father. Instead of being elated, Scott’s father grew quiet. On the trip home, he didn’t even touch the gun! Eventually, Jonathan asked him about it. At first, Scott’s father demurred. When Jonathan pressed him, he said it was just an object. When Jonathan retorted that it was an object with family significance, Scott’s father opened up. 

He told Scott how he and his wife had bought burial plots next to each other. When he saw Scott descending into addiction, he began to fear he would have to bury his son in one of those plots. And then he said this, “Don’t let it bother you anymore. The greatest prize that I got out of this whole thing is the fact that even though all this crap disappeared, I got to get my boy back… That’s ever so much better.”

All that time, Scott had thought it hinged on being able to retrieve that gun. But in the end, that was all beside the point! What his father really wanted all along was his boy. And so you see, it’s no different with you and God, either! 

We all have our little pet projects we think will polish our relationship with God. Don’t we? Like Scott, it might be something in the past we need to fix. Like the faction from Judea in today’s Scripture, it might be some issue in the present we need to get right. Like me, it might be some fear about a hypothetical future we need to avoid. Whatever it is, though, what happens is what always happens. We wind up thinking it all depends on us!

It doesn’t matter if our self-salvation enterprise is big or small, easy or difficult, good or bad (and it’s always good). In the end, it’s all the same. We think it all hangs on our shoulders. And that only makes everything worse.

Like Scott, we’re running around trying to fix something that doesn’t need fixing. Like the faction from Judea, we’re running around trying to make sure the rough edges of life fit into our little theoretical ideals. Like me, we’re running around trying to evade a future that isn’t even real! And all the while, God, in Jesus Christ, is saying, “it is finished!” 

At the cross, Jesus took the world upon his shoulders. The love that sent him there is the same love that reconciles us prodigals. It’s the same love that justifies the Judeans by birth and even Gentile sinners like us. All without any contribution on our part! It’s the same love that takes the future out of our hands and gives it back to us as a gift!

So today, take whatever your little Gospel contingency is and lay it on your savior’s capable shoulders. He can bear it! He’s promised to! And he’s already busy bearing away anything and everything that would separate you from the love of God, anyway! 

And Jesus doesn’t leave you empty-handed, either! He gives you more than was lost in the fall! Not only does Jesus give you that relationship with God you’ve always wanted. He also gives you your past, present, and future all set a’right! Jesus makes this moment nothing less than the dawn of the very first day of creation before sin came in and mucked the whole thing up! More still, he gives you that mystic sweet communion as you take your place within the great family of faith as a beloved child of God, now and forever! Come what may!